CDC Advises Delayed Breastfeeding To Boost Vaccine Efficacy

Ten researchers from the CDC’s National Centers for Immunization and Respiratory Disease (NCIRD) released a paper arguing that because the immune-boosting effects of breastmilk inhibit the effects of the live oral rotavirus vaccine, nursing mothers should delay breastfeeding their infants.

This, dear readers, is the kind of convoluted logic that permeates the pharmaceutical industry. To be fair, the paper does not recommend that mothers stop breastfeeding, merely that they delay nursing at the time that the vaccine is administered. It also says that other avenues for boosting the vaccine’s efficacy should be explored.

Honestly, I don’t care how nuanced their recommendation is. Do they not realize what they have stumbled upon? In demonstrating that breastmilk counters the live vaccine, they’ve shown that breastmilk counters the virus.

A live vaccine contains a weakened form of the virus that causes the disease. The idea is that by presenting the weakened virus to your body, your immune system will develop an immune response to the virus sufficient to help you fight off a more virulent attack of the virus later. In other words, when your body is fighting off the live virus, it is effectively fighting off the virus itself, just in smaller quantities.

If breastmilk’s immune-boosting properties fight-off the live vaccine, then that means that breastmilk is fighting off the virus itself (just in smaller quantities).

Yet instead of recommending that the best way to fight this disease in infants is to encourage mothers to breastfeed, they’re recommending that mothers refrain from breastfeeding so that the vaccine can work!

I’m troubled by the underlying assumptions these researchers are making. They’re assuming, for example, that the vaccine should be used regardless of its efficacy. They’re assuming that the vaccine is better for the baby than breastfeeding. They’re assuming that the vaccine is safe.

Or, perhaps they’re not assuming any of those things. They are single-minded scientists after all. Their sole goal in this paper seems to simply be to measure the inhibitory effects of breast milk on the vaccine. They compared the breastmilk from mothers in India, South Korea, Vietnam, and the U.S. Indian mothers had the most potent breastmilk in fighting the vaccine, while U.S. moms had the weakest.

(I wonder if that’s because of our poor diets of overly-processed, industrialized food?)

I think it’s interesting to note that the researchers aren’t asking about what’s best for the baby. The question they have in mind is quite focused: just how much does breastmilk neutralize the vaccine?

Arguably, it’s a win for nursing mothers everywhere since it proves just how effective breastmilk can be!

And yet, these researchers didn’t stop there. They took their snazzy results and had the audacity to call them a “negative effect” of breastfeeding.

Clearly, they have one goal in mind: to sell more vaccines.

And therein lies the rub. The pharmaceutical industry could care less about actual health and wellness. After all, if you are healthy, they don’t make any money off of you. It is in their financial best interests for you to be perpetually sick.

I doubt that these researchers sat in their break room clad in black leather, sipping spiked coffee sporting evil grins as they plotted about how to take over the world. Most likely, they’re family folk feeling quite proud about the fact that they are developing vaccines to use in poor, undeveloped countries.

And yet despite their noble intentions, they can’t see how their assumptions influenced their recommendations. For if they were truly all about the health of the baby, they’d look at their findings and recommend that more women breastfeed. Or they’d look at their findings and ask why Indian breastmilk is so much more effective than American breastmilk, then start creating studies to unpack all the implications of that.

But who would fund those kinds of studies? Surely not the drug companies who are creating and selling vaccines? Surely not the universities who are also funded by grants from those same drug companies? Surely not the U.S. government which also receives large sums of money (as well as employees) from those same drug companies?

Nobody would fund those kinds of studies. (And that’s why they’re not done.)

It’s been said that good health makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t make a lot of dollars.

About the Author

Kristen Michaelis is a passionate advocate for REAL FOOD -- food that's sustainable, organic, local, and traditionally-prepared according to the wisdom of our ancestors. While she adores hats & happy skirts, nothing inspires her quite like geeking out over nutrition & sustainable agriculture. Nutrition educator & author of the go-to book on nutrition for fertility, she's also a rebel with a cause who enjoys playing in the rain, a good bottle of Caol Isla scotch, curling up with a page-turning book, sunbathing on her hammock, and parenting her three children as they grow into young adults.

Comments

Yeah, Scientists are EVIL CORPORATE shills trying to KILL all of us for what! just for MONEY! I for one know that baby Jesus is the only protection I need! That’s why after 30 years on this planet I still buy Mother Mary brand breast milk. It’s organic and GMO free and makes my skin tingle. Some of it I drink, but the rest I rub all over my body to keep the TOXINS OUT! Thanks you for shedding the light on this evil conspiracy to use the systematic study of reality to get me to change my behavior! Not all SHEEPLE can be as smart as we ARE!

I’ve not seen the primary article, but from how it was paraphrased, it appears that the authors of the publication that was sited were not careful with how they worded their advice.

The conclusions by Ms. Michaelis are incorrect. The protective effects of mother’s milk are PASSIVE. This means, that there is no immunity bestowed on the child by consuming the milk. There is only an enhanced ability to combat infection. For our children to grow up healthy, they must develop active immunity against thousands of things. Vaccinations are designed to spare the child the damage and suffering that results from exposure to the disease, while providing the immunity protection that results from such illness. To conclude that mother’s milk could somehow substitute for the vaccine might be logical, but it is incorrect. There are no such magical properties inherent in the collostrum.

From what I’ve read, it sounds like the intent of these authors was merely to point out that the potency of the vaccination could be blunted by the ingested gamma globulins from mother’s milk because the milk leaves baby’s immune system less challenged.

There is so much misleading material on the internet concerning vaccines. It would be a shame if this were to become another piece of anti-vaccine propaganda.

Vaccinations are given at such a young age because it is infants who are at the greatest risk to succumbing to the disease. If this paper shows that mother’s milk can handle the infection then breastfeeding would be safer than a vaccine. It is safer for a baby to have a passive response to an infection than to illicit such a strong immune response by vaccination. Most of the deadliest effects of getting a disease are caused by our own immune system causing inflammation. Passive immunity of a mother’s milk would assure no inflammation and would be a much better alternative for an infant. Most of the vaccinations are to protect infants but do often cause inflammation which is very dangerous. It would be better if infants were breastfed to protect them from pathogens and then vaccinated when they are older so that the inflammation does not pose such a risk.

first, when you misspelled the word cited in your first sentence, i could tell you were not quite all there. went to med school for 8 years and you cannot correctly spell the word cited- a word used in medical journals worldwide. more likely you work for the VACCINE INDUSTRY, Big Pharma. second, infants should never be vaccinated. period. end of story. pregnant mothers should never be vaccinated. period. end of story. vaccines for infants causes AUTISM. don’t EVEN try and deny it, a CDC doctor has publicaly admitted this, and the continuing coverup of this fact. it is more than criminal that you are recommending infants to be vaccinated. third- if you read the label on these vaccines that you recommend for children, horrendous side effects are listed. fourth- every ear there are outbreaks of whooping cough, flu, measles, etc., and these outbreaks occur mostly among the children who got the vaccination. coincidence? nope. even polio outbreaks all over india follow the same trail as the vaccines. fifth- these vaccines you recommend contain mercury levels thousands of times higher than recommended in drinking water. mercury is completely toxic to humans. you are discredited as a shill for the vaccine criminals.

I just want to say a lot of respect to Edi Ski. It seems most people leave med school more asleep than when they went in. He is totally awake. we need more people like him in the world and coming out of med school!
Another thing is Breastmilk is one of the most important thing a mom can do for her baby. This is another criminal act by pharma to discourage the importance of bonding and sell more vaccines and poison more people so they can have lifelong patients and further their agenda to depopulate the world. the sad thing is people will actually go along with this.

There is actually a wealth of great information concerning vaccines on the internet. People are getting wise to the facts that vaccines are not all we’ve been told and the RISKS associated with them has also been completelt ignored or downplayed. Vaccines are not a religion and should not be touted as such. The truth is vaccines are neither safe nor effective. There has not been one safety study done on our current vaccine schedule and they don’t intend to do one. Why would they not do the actual science on our schedule? Why keep adding to it with no safety studies? Our government has given the pharma industry a free pass on all liability. We don’t live under a rock–vaccine damage is real and prevelant now in every community. People are wising up to the corruption that is allowed at the CDC. Drs. push the propaganda for monetary gains. No Dr. and no organization should be able to make a profit and turn their backs on the people they have taken an oath to protect. The truth is out there–in every damn Drs. office –vaccine damage. It cannot be denied-vaccine damage is real! Learn the Risks! Every reputable DR. should be looking into this themselves—if you don’t and if you receive vaccination kickbacks then you should also be on the line. Remember this–the pharma industry is protected-individual Drs. are not. When you ignore vaccine damage then you should lose your liciense to practice!

Rotavirus causes diarrhea. It’s really not a health issue in the US at all–and wasn’t before the vaccine was developed. It’s not dangerous to anyone but newborns. And breastfed babies are far less likely to cone down with rotavirus. So, in all honesty, the only US babies for whom it might make sense to receive this vaccine are formula-fed newborns. But the media’s favorite vaccine doctor, Paul Offitt, makes money on every dose administered.

Yeah, this had me pretty steamed, too. When I posted the info on Facebook, some folks suggested that if they were asking mothers not to breastfeed for a couple of hours, that wasn’t so bad. I don’t agree, as breastfeeding is a form of comfort as well as nutrition. Also, if you look at the related paper this study references, they discuss how colostrum inhibits the vaccine even more, which to me suggests that they are implying that babies forgo colostrum in order to make vaccines more effective, which is just completely nuts.

Hi Laurie,
Breastfeeding has undeniable emotional and protective benefits. Vaccination is more effective if the baby isn’t breast feeding, because the antibodies in the colostrum help the baby’s immune system to clear away the vaccine before it has time to “learn” immunity. I agree with you that it seems inappropriate (and even bizarre!) that the conclusion is to delay breast-feeding .. surely, it means that early vaccinations simply require a booster.

The only exception I could see is if the baby is at high risk of exposure to a dangerous disease – for example, if parents are planning to travel to a place with poor water quality, they may choose to delay breastfeeding to ensure greatest protection from a polio vaccine.

Please cite where in the study the researchers recommend that “nursing mothers should delay breastfeeding their infants.” I see them saying that “Strategies to overcome this negative effect, such as delaying breast-feeding at the time of immunization, should be evaluated.” There is a huge difference between recommending something and saying that something be evaluated.

Thanks Julie, this article from the title to the content is misleading. ‎”Strategies to overcome this negative effect, such as delaying breast-feeding at the time of immunization, should be evaluated.” This means the paper recommended further evaluation of delayed breast milk feeding as a means to support the findings of the study. The paper never tries to recommend anything and Food Renegade is trying to drum up controversy to gain readership. In fact the study if brought to conclusion could be a step in the direction of supporting breast feeding for the reasons the article mentions. In fact, to date, the CDC still advises to continue breast milk feeding and encourages it in it’s General Recommendations on Immunization. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/rr/rr6002.pdf

Yes! Yes! Yes! This blog post is terrible because it completely misinterprets the article and its context. This is not a recommendation, it is a scientific article trying to understand why a vaccine doesn’t seem to work in some contexts. Given what they have found, they suggest that future trials should be conducted to better understand the problem. I figured you guys would be all over research to better understand the interaction between breastfeeding and viral infections.

Did I not make this clear when I said, “Their sole goal in this paper seems to simply be to measure the inhibitory effects of breast milk on the vaccine. They compared the breastmilk from mothers in India, South Korea, Vietnam, and the U.S. Indian mothers had the most potent breastmilk in fighting the vaccine, while U.S. moms had the weakest.”

How is that misinterpreting the study? I simply choose to take offense at the recommendations at the end of the study — at the questions the researchers AREN’T asking. Why, when presented with such proof that breastmilk inhibits the virus, do they interpret that as a “negative effect” of breastmilk rather than something worth more investigation? Why don’t they try to figure out how to improve breastmilk’s efficacy against the virus, rather than how to improve the vaccine’s efficacy by delaying breastfeeding? They take some neat information and ask all the wrong questions about it — questions skewed by the agenda of vaccine manufacturers.

Why, when presented with such proof that breastmilk inhibits the virus, do they interpret that as a “negative effect” of breastmilk rather than something worth more investigation?

They are not saying that breastmilk is, in and of itself, negative, or that breastmilk has a negative effect in general. Their study wanted to find out why the vaccine was less effective in developing countries, and they found out that it was because breastmilk in those developing countries had higher antibody levels. Higher antibody levels in the breastmilk meant that the breastmilk had a negative effect on the vaccine. The term, as used in this paper, has a very specific meaning that you are either ignorant of or are willfully misinterpreting to suit your preconceived notions.

The paper doesn’t recommend anything in terms of practical advice for mothers. It is a report on their findings with recommendations on how to further frame studies based on those findings, which is exactly what you’re criticizing them for not doing.

Let me summarize their summary so that its meaning can be clearly understood:Hey! We wondered why rotavirus oral vaccine wasn’t working as well in developing countries, so we looked at the breastmilk in those countries and found out that it is pretty awesome at fighting rotavirus by itself! If we want to see all the implications of this information, studies should probably be done where we have some moms with this super milk wait a little while between the vaccine and their baby’s next feed, just to see what happens.

Nowhere in that paper is there any mention of public health recommendations on any level, so your headline is completely incorrect. This is an article on PubMed, which is intended for students and researchers so they can stay abreast of recent developments and see recent findings to guide their own research. You deliberately, with your headline, make it seem like the CDC sent out a notice to hospitals yesterday saying NO MORE BREASTFEEDING BECAUSE PFIZER SAID SO!

Actually, the paper *does* recommend that mothers wait at least an hour after vaccinating their kids to breastfeed. It then suggests that varying times should be further investigated to see if they are more or less efficacious.

I am sorry that you don’t like my headline, but I am limited by space. This one is already about 15 characters longer than I like mine to usually be. While some bloggers won’t have a problem with a headline that reads “Researchers in a recent CDC report find breastmilk inhibits rotovirus vaccine and recommend delaying breastfeeding to increase the vaccine’s efficacy”, I do. Writing headlines is difficult because I must balance confined space with enough substance to get readers to actually click through to the article. I also have to make sure the title is keyword rich so that it shows up in searches when readers want to come back to it later, or when new readers want to know my opinion on the subject. Balancing a tidy length with keywords and enough message to get people to click is a precarious endeavor indeed! The headline is not meant to convey actual information or my opinion. (That’s why I write a whole post and not just headlines!) It’s meant to get people to click through to read the post. I apologize if you find some of them misleading, but I do the best I can with what I’ve got.

It is true that people don’t breastfeed forever! What does that have to do with anything? If a mom has natural immunity to a disease, she passes it on to her baby in her breastmilk. So, why not wait to vaccine until babies are no longer breastfeeding and have actually developed an immune system strong enough to respond to the vaccine?

When Japan delayed all vaccines until children were at least 2 years old, they were much more successful at getting the vaccines to “take” (needing less booster shots to create “immunity”). They also eliminated almost all cases of SIDS (interesting coincidence, huh?).

I exclusively breastfed my son for 7.5 months. Breastmilk continued to make up the major part of his nutrition for his first year. He still got rotovirus. Scariest time in my life, watching my almost-lifeless son vomit for six straight days. Breastfed babies still get rotovirus. Please don’t tell people otherwise.

I don’t believe KristenM is stating kids still can’t get the diseases. In the study, it did show milk from other countries seemed to be more effective. Perhaps, in Japan, the case is the same, and we need to investigate why milk here isn’t as effective.

Yes & my best friends fully vaxed child was hospitalized with it..and he was breastfed…but my unvaxed breastfed child was not. Go figure. NOTHING is 100% and for ANYONE to imply it that anything is 100% would be completely foolish. Less than 100% does NOT make it ineffective though…because if that were the case you’d have to call EVERY vaccine ineffective as well.

I am sorry you went through that. While we never dealt with that specifically, my one child did contract a norovirus that was nasty (we all did, he just didn’t bounce back so quick) and vomited 10 days straight…it was hideous & scary. Norovirus is unfortunately just a regular tummy bug & they come around periodically, but he just got that one extra rough for some reason. I was told the ONLY reason he didn’t need hospitalization is that he was still heavily nursing at 20 months & it was keeping his electrolytes up despite the vomiting. Thank God for that.

Yes babies and children occasionally get sick. Yes it is scary, but part of life. In these parts, in this day and age when your baby has a gastrointestinal infection it can be supplemented with IV fluids and monitoring, and do just fine. By breastfeeding your baby you probably helped him get back to health more quickly. My first baby could not be breastfed and was vaccinated as required, and is the only one of my now 4,6,8 year olds that has really had any type of gastrointestinal bug lasting more than a few hours.

You`re going by the assumption that the vaccine would make any difference. The immune system is way more complex than titers of immunoglobulin. Vaccines are often the source of these outbreaks always automatically blamed on the non-vaccinated.

Exactly, Kristen! A few years ago, when I took our *then* puppy to a VERY pro-vaccine vet for puppy shots, I told him that the breeder had already given her her first round of shots. He shook his head and said those first vaccines were a complete waste because the momma’s milk counters the viruses in the vaccines and that vaccination should start after the pups have been weaned for at least a couple weeks if not longer. It makes perfect sense. Why would humans be different?

Now, this was from a vet who was so pro-vaccine he pressured me into way more vaccines than I wanted (and I changed to a holistic vet to help pull our poor dog out of the vaccine reaction she got from way overkill of shots, but that’s another story)!

Do you have any idea how passive protection works? The mother passes on antibodies only. The child’s immune system does not learn how to create those antibodies from the mother’s milk. It provides protection, a mild protection only, from the disease onkynwhile the child is breastfeeding. We can’t make this better, or make it long term.

The way to make the immunity better and king term is tomgice a vaccine

Nicholas – as with many other vaccine-preventable illnesses, Rotavirus is an example of one that is only severe in the first year or two of life. If one plans to breastfeed their child during this stage and doesn’t put the child into daycare, then I can see why some people choose not to administer this vaccine. Also, I would agree with your comment about it being “better to have 2 protections,” if only the vaccine were simply another protection. But the unfortunate reality is that Rotavirus vaccine is not entirely risk-free. For one thing, it contains some controversial ingredients, like monkey kidney cells and fetal cow blood, which some believe could introduce other infectious diseases. Also, there are a number of documented side effects that were discovered during the clinical trials of this vaccine. Sure, the probability of having one of these side effects is low, but hopefully you can see why some people choose not to double-up on their protections after evaluating the full risk/reward equation.

Rotorix specifically was removed from market in 2007 because it was found to have pig RNA (viral DNA if you don’t know) as a contaminant. It was “tested” found to be safe & rather than reproducing it without any pig viral RNA, re-released as is & it is the most common rotovirus vax given at present.

So? Rotavirus is infant diarrhea. And breastfeeding is free from risk for the baby, while vaccines certainly are not. In this case, I suspect that breast milk with more antibodies belongs to mothers more likely to have been recently exposed to the virus. Rotavirus isn’t really an issue in the US, and wasn’t before the vaccine, either.

It is misleading and inflammatory because the TITLE OF YOUR POST in YOUR OWN WORDS says “CDC Advises Delayed Breastfeeding To Boost Vaccine Efficacy”.

The CDC DOES NOT advise any such thing. In fact, the actual CDC recommendations pertaining to the vaccine in question say just the opposite.

One can open a dialogue about the implications of this paper without sensatioalizing it.

I am disappointed in seeing how REAL FOOD advocates, whom I respect deeply and from whom I have learned so much, resort to tactics like this. It is no different than real milk detractors writing about the horrors of infection from raw milk without ever actually looking raw milk’s safety record.

The credibility of the whole movement–at least for me—is at stake. I’m a WAPF member but if this kind of material keeps pouring out of the community, I will no longer be part of it because I won’t be able to trust the science any more than that of the medical-agricultural-industrial complex.

Kristen,
I found your reply to Susie to be disingenuous and dismissive. She makes a legitimate point, and I don’t know her from Adam. In order to earn the respect of critical thinkers and scientists who try to be as fair as possible in evaluating questions pertaining to health, we must be extremely careful, deliberate, and meticulous in drawing conclusions from research. We don’t want to lose the people with the brains and the good judgment and connections that will move us forward.

It seems that pride is an issue because Susie and the others are correct; the headline is sensational and apparently does not reflect an actual, CLINICAL recommendation at this point in time. The recommendation that is made is for researchers as they continue to probe into this area of study.

I just thought it was dismissive to say, “If you don’t like it, you’re free not to read”. That just, with a wave of the hand, attempts to get rid of Susie instead of engaging with her. That isn’t polite! I’m from northern NJ near Manhattan, and this is a very “New York” way to talk to someone, but I have never liked it. If you have a blog that invites comments, you need to be prepared to receive comments that are constructively critical, as well as favorable…And to respond to them as graciously as possible. I’ve never read your blog before this, and seeing the way the commenters are being replied to, is actually having the effect of alienating me from the blog. So please keep in mind that it’s not just Susie who will stop reading your blog, as you invited her to do. It will be others who are “observers” of the comments section who see how defensive your replies are to the legitimate concerns raised. I didn’t think the objectors were dismissive of you; they were forthright, logical, and respectful. This just doesn’t feel inviting to the reader.

Thank you for letting us know what questions researchers are looking at, re: breastfeeding and inoculations.

Thank you so much, Kristen. I follow you on Facebook and while I find you to be groovy, I also find you to be informed, informative and most importantly, without alterior motives.
I recently made the decision to adobt the no shots, no way policy for my children, and it’s because of this kind of stuff. It’s my children’s lives; it’s these people’s jobs.
I have a degree in marketing and marketing materials are all I found on The CDC website.

The reason you are being misleading is that you have taken a simple, ordinary everyday scientific study of an important but very specific question (“why does the rotavirus vaccine seem to be less effective in some of the countries that need it the most?”) and skewed it to sound as though the CDC recommends delaying breastfeeding following vaccination. This is not CDC policy, this is just one study, looking at one very small question about the effects of breastmilk on vaccination. The researchers didn’t even say that breastfeeding should be delayed, they just said this is one possible option to evaluate. To spin it out into something much bigger than it is is simply sensationalism and makes you look like you don’t understand how to interpret scientific research. If you have a point to make, and you want people to take you seriously, articles like these don’t help your cause.

Also I’m really confused by your point “do they not realize what they have stumbled upon? In demonstrating that breastmilk counters the live vaccine, they’ve shown that breastmilk counters the virus” – it seems pretty clear to me that the whole reason they were studying breastmilk was because they realised the immunological properties may be responsible for reducing vaccine effectiveness. The fact that breastmilk helps to protect against pathogens is scientific consensus, but you make it sound like the scientists must have been unaware of this fact, or even that this fact goes against their nefarious aims!!

So yes, this is a confused & misleading article, although thank you for drawing my attention to this study as it’s quite interesting and thought provoking.

The study actually does recommend waiting at least an hour after administering the oral vaccine to breastfeed. What they implied needed further study was the exact time frame necessary to have the desired effect (Would 20 minutes be sufficient? How about 30? Would it be more effective to wait even longer — say several hours?).

this kind of poor writing is what happens when a blogger doesn’t know the difference between a preliminary study, an actual study, and recommendations. Wow. I can’t believe the lack of critical thinking by the people who swallowed this article as truth, and the sheer irresponsibility of the writer. People, Google is a SEARCH engine, not a REsearch engine, and clearly this writer has no idea what she even read. SMDH.

There is an obvious slant and missed connection that the researchers are missing. While there may be a bit of taking the study as “conclusive” rather than preliminary findings, there is clearly a narrow and largely technology biased direction being taken that is not considering in its recommendation moving forward, that more breast feeding may actually be the solution.
From the CDC abstract: “Live oral rotavirus vaccines have been less immunogenic and efficacious among children in poor developing countries compared with middle income and industrialized countries for reasons that are not yet completely understood” coupled with…..
“Breast milk from Indian women had the highest IgA and neutralizing titers against all 3 vaccine strains, while lower but comparable median IgA and neutralizing titers were detected in breast milk from Korean and Vietnamese women, and the lowest titers were seen in American women”

A well known scientific fact is that “extinction” of traits can occur when the biological imperative and practice that it evolved from is no longer present. In other words, it is a well known fact that….due to technology, lifestyle and lack of disease pressure, natural immunity can pass by the wayside. What’s really interesting is that IgA obviously has a superior general disease fighting ability that biologically views the vaccine itself as a potential threat indicating that it has a greater and superseding immunological benefit and yet……the slant is that it is in fact the “negative” culprit against what the researchers…..want in the outcome.
We are talking about 200,000 years of natural evolution (this is only the acknowledged time period of what is considered “homo sapien” and does not include the carry over genetic history of all life as we know it) vs. the metrics of scientific “progress” which is essentially a flat line of relativity up until the mid 19th century and the practice of research only since the beginning of the 20th Century. This is a a scientific fact that science fails to truly incorporate into its own “wisdom” and therein, adjust itself in humility
.

Vaccines still have the dubious measure of bypassing all of the body’s normal channels of pathogen/viral/bacterial defenses which is one of its main detractions (not to mention from a toxicological perspective all of the NASTY adjuvants used to evoke a “proper” immune response will be directly resulting the in immune dysfunction mainly via damage to the CNS) Vaccines are, will be, and will always be of questionable to outright worthless value… immune competency is much more effective without being enslaved to the pharmacuetical paradigm.

Vaccines actually use the body’s immune system. It doesn’t bypass the defenses, instead it stimulates them. Although it is a valid possibility, that it might not come up with as strong set of antibodies as a natural infection would.

My understanding is that the immune response triggered by a vaccine is *not* the same as what you get from natural infection. I attended a talk by Dr. Thomas Cowan, who explained that the problem with vaccines is that they “only affect the cell’s mediated response, but not the humoral response…which has led to an epidemic of people with compromised cell mediated response.” I suspect he’s explaining what has been observed in studies, like Poland and Jacobson’s ’94 study entitled, “Failure to reach goal of measles elimination”, which show that measles vaccination “produces immune suppression which contributes to an increased susceptibility to other infections.” In other words, people who contract illnesses like the measles or rotavirus may be less susceptible to sickness later in life.

“Vaccines are, will be, and will always be of questionable to outright worthless value”. This is an unbelievable statement coming from someone who quite clearly does not work in public health. Vaccines have saved so many lives. How is that worthless?

Vaccines have destroyed more lives that saved. Social conditions and access to food are the main drivers of disappearance of disease. Watch the third world countries starve and drink their own piss. Vaccinating them and renaming Polio to a flacid paralysis something won’t change reality. Vaccines are voodoo-science, and they’re fully exposed as fraudulent. Now that people have access to information, the day of the vaccine is near it’s end.

Very interesting post. I am especially intrigued about the differing effectiveness of the breastmilk from different countries. And I am so glad that I nursed my kids for a long time. Thanks for sharing.

One Facebook commenter said something interesting about that. She proposed that rather than it having to do with diet, the increased efficacy of breastmilk in Indian women may have to do with the fact that the women themselves are/were unvaccinated and have a stronger natural immunity to pass on in their milk. I like that theory!

Kristen, I was appalled when I saw this yesterday, but you make a very good point. This should be encouraging us to promote breastfeeding over vaccines all the more! Thanks for the reminder and keeping positive.

i can’t wait to see how many sick, autistic and learning disabled kids are produced when they vaccinate them without prior fortification of breast milk!
can our social safety net handle a generation of sick kids?

I am assuming that you meant “between autism and vaccines” or “between (autism and learning disabilities) and vaccines” not “between autism and learning disabilities”, as autism is by definition a learning disability.

That being said, this is still a very inflammatory comment that is based on sensational claims without the studies to back them up. Although according to epidemiological data, the incidence rates of many diseases decreased faster than they had been (as most diseases with vaccines were already dropping in prevalence pre-vaccine) following introduction of a vaccine, the mortality rates do not show the same decrease. Smallpox is a prime example of this, along with others like measles, rubella, and chickenpox.

One possible explaination for this is that the vaccine helped to prevent the otherwise healthy individual whose naturally functioning and stimulated immune system would otherwise be perfectly capable of handling said disease from getting it in the first place, while not conveying the same level of protection to the person who really needed it, ie the person who couldn’t fight off the disease in the first place. While the concept of “herd immunity” sounds really nice, placing all people on the front-lines in the “War Against Bugs”, there are holes in it. One example is that even people who have received a vaccine for a disease, like the flu for example, can still catch, harbor, and spread the virus responsible for the disease in amounts significant enough to cause infection, even if they are not expressing symptoms, which can actually increase the spread of disease in certain circumstances.

Although polio’s epidemiologic data does not fit the pattern described above, of interesting note is the simultaneous drop of polio morbidity and mortality, linked with an increase in the morbidity and especially the mortality of aseptic meningitis following the introduction of the polio vaccine, as diagnostic criteria for polio were changed such that if someone had recieved the vaccine, they “couldn’t have gotten” polio, and so were automatically lumped into a catch-all diagnosis.

I too would love to see some research into the questions that haven’t yet been answered. I think the study results, and in fact that this particular study was done at all, are remarkable, but it would be great to see some conclusions that have the mother and baby first, not the vaccines (and by extension, the pharmaceutical industry).

I tried to look up the offending article and finally found it. Everything states that there is no change in efficacy of the vaccine when the recommended dosage is given (i.e. all three doses.) When reading what the CDC says on the subject, they clearly state that mothers should continue to breastfeed their children and no mention of delaying breastfeeding have been officially made in the hopes of making the vaccine more effective. In fact, in the articles I read, they stated that breastfeeding was one of the best ways to prevent rotavirus and the vaccine should be used in conjunction with breastfeeding to build the child’s immunity. I know I breastfed both my children immediately after they had the vaccines and no one told me not to. If I have another child, I’ll do the same. You have taken one study and run with the misinformation that the CDC says to hold off breastfeeding when the CDC officially says nothing of the sort.

Ugh. My prediction: doctors will no longer be nice and accomodating about mamas nursing their babies in the doctor’s office after shots. Babies will be crankier because they don’t receive comfort/pain relief as quickly. Nursing moms will feel guilty whether they nurse their baby immediately or whether they wait while their baby fusses.
Not cool.

but cool that the study showed another cool disease-fighting feature of breastmilk!

Thank you Julie, Emiliano, PLW, Valerie, and Susie, for helping other readers like me look at the big picture and not just at an inflammatory statement.

Thank you Kristen, for letting us know the good news that are found in this study (breastmilk helping fight viruses).

I’m completely in favor of breastfeeding, completely against having a healthcare system that makes profits out of healthcare.

If you are ok with constructive criticism, I would definitely choose a different headline, not because I don’t “like it” (as in a matter of style) but because it does say something different from what the rest of the post says. Headlines are difficult, and so are many things in life, but that doesn’t mean they should say something that does not correspond to the actual news or information provided. The evaluation of the recommendation to delay (not a recommendation, but evaluation to recommend) considers an extremely temporary delay compared to the big-picture of all the time nursing, not significant enough to be called a “delay” as in “stop nursing so we can make money out of vaccines”.

I also believe many of the misunderstandings commented here come from the fact that you’re jumping to contradictory conclusions. Your post, in fact, says that ” the paper does not recommend that mothers stop breastfeeding, merely that they delay nursing at the time that the vaccine is administered”. How is that, in any way, going against breastfeeding just to sell vacciens???

However, later you state that:
“Yet instead of recommending that the best way to fight this disease in infants is to encourage mothers to breastfeed, they’re recommending that mothers refrain from breastfeeding so that the vaccine can work!” {…} “They’re assuming that the vaccine is better for the baby than breastfeeding”.

Mmm… No, they are not assuming the vaccine is better for the baby than breastfeeding, unless you meant it is better during one hour of the baby’s life (the time when it is being administered). And no, they are not recommending that mothers refrain from breastfeeding, they are only considering evaluating delaying nursing A BIT while the vaccine is being administered.

I think I’ll file this information under “WTF did the makers of formula pay for this?”

Both of my son’s nursed within minutes of birth- as soon as they were weighed by the staff and handed back to me, they started right in. Our youngest was overdue so a bit dehydrated. He nursed for an hour right after birth.

There is no freakin’ way these kids were getting needles within a minute of their birth!

I have two little girls.
My eldest had almost all her shots, had skin issues, iron deficiencies, and some emotional issues all remedied by diet (eliminated almost all grains and I limit high starchy and sweet foods for us all)
She was breast fed till she was 3.5 years old
Littlest has had no shots, with no issues (although she has been on our above diet pretty much since birth) She is still breastfeeding (she is almost 2)
I do notice that the littlest one gets sick more often (maybe due to having an older sister out and about?) and when she does get sick, it seems to last a little longer than her sisters bugs ever did or do
BUT- Even though it is quite miserable for parents when your little one is throwing up for a week straight, or has a raspy, gooey cough for 2+ weeks- especially when the mother gets sick too- Maybe the trade off is acceptable? It’s too early to tell, but like one response above pointed out (in different words), maybe getting sick while young is better? I know it’s anecdotal, but I know quite a few really old, healthy people (and not so old, my dad!) that had quite a few of these childhood disease when young, and don’t get nearly as sick as often as I see my generation getting.
(And yes, I know that there are some disease I don’t want my kids getting, like polio and TB- but some scientific evidence exists that point to these diseases being prevented and protected against through diet; it is a risk, and not one I’ve determined worth taking yet..)

As a note to parents who freak out about their kids getting sick- you need to know what you’re looking for, and you need to know the protocol with dealing with sickness- I’m not a doctor, but with these simple steps I’ve taken on the worst bugs with no doctor or hospital visits. (And know quite a few nurses and other non-hypochondriac medical professionals who follow this as well)
If your child has the sniffles, cough, flu symptoms with a fever bellow 103(not lasting for more than a day or two) and they aren’t catatonic, leave them be with the over the counter crap (no fever suppressors or chemical loader cough suppressor) and doctor visits and antibiotics. Use breastfeeding, comfort, trust, and maybe some safe simple herbal remedies to help with the discomfort, but try not to meddle too much! Fevers are meant to burn off the bad stuff, coughs are meant to clear out the lungs. Stomach flues are bad, but making sure the child is hydrated (I know it sucks seeing your child throw up your breast milk for the 4th time that day.. but) that is the only thing the doctors can do for a child in the hospital anyway (IVs suck and your child has the potential to come down with something worse!)- the cause of deaths due to stomach flues (the rotavirus included) are mostly due to dehydration and it’s complications- if you don’t panic your child will be uncomfortable but fine in a few days.

Sorry for the little rant, but seriously, if you have children, don’t just think it’s other people’s jobs to take care of them (doctors), ‘school’/raise them (schools), and indoctrinate them in everything from food to what to think (government).
Educate yourself, keep an open mind, and question eveything (well almost everything) that comes your way. That way you teach you children that as well.

I love Food Renegade’s posts, and the fact that she bluntly points out the weaslely way this paper minces words to ‘prove’ it’s theory (i.e. twisting the questions and answers to get the conclusion they want)
People as a mass can be easily swayed by things calling themselves science and people calling themselves experts.

india loses almost 100,000 children a year to rotavirus. this fact negates pretty much everything in your post. if breast milk were as effective as the vaccine, that would not be the case. if western mothers were endangering their kids with their poor diets and leading to lower, vaccine reliant immune systems in their children, that would not be the case. what is actually the case is that poor kids in india die every day because the vaccine is only available privately and their mothers cannot save them simply breastfeeding.

This is such a hugely important subjet. Through no fault of their own, mose American women don’t really understand what the function of breastfeeding is. The main purpose of breastmilk is not to supply the totality of baby’s “food” or nutrition support. Breastmilk is not about baby’s diet. That is way too huge a subject to cover in a comment.

In the 1860s an evil man named Jenner was doing research in England on use of vaccines. Whether it was his intent or not, I personally believe his research became the foundation by which vaccines could be adopted for use in warfare. (This was back when the political horizon was being ploughed in preparation for mass exterminations of WW-I and II, largely by disease. Another huge subject.)

Jenner was working with diseases of the time, being smallpox, syphilous, and tuberculosis. He found that when one of the four teats of a cow was painted with the pus from an open infection, or with the saliva of an infected patient, then, that particular teat (and only that teat) would produce a strange and powerful kind of milk. That milk, when put in a petri dish with the virus in question, would kill the virus. (This was before antibiotics.) He also observed that milk drawn from the three other teats of the same cow would not kill the virus. His studies started when he noticed that milk drawn by milkmaids who had encountered cowpox infections were cured by that milk.
It may be too radical for this site, but the CDC and MDs are part of a depopulation agenda, and toward that end, they are well aware that purpose of breast milk is to build and protect baby’s immune system, in accord with the environment that he finds around his mouth. The first thing a baby does is put everything from his or her environment on its mouth. 350 million years ago, he might put poop from sabre tooth tiger on his mouth. Today, he puts whatever on his mouth. Then baby attaches to his mother to nurse.
Baby does not have an immune system of his own for the first two years. This proves the fraud of baby vaccination. Baby does not yet have an immune system for the vaccine to tweak. For the frst two years, baby’s antibodies are produced by the thymus gland behind the breast sternum in front of the mother’s heart. These antibodies flow across the breast gland where they are homeopathically tuned to build baby’s immune system. The nipple of the breast gland is a homeopathic sensor. When baby attaches to it, it immediately senses what is in baby’s environment, and what is safe and not safe. Baby’s vibrations on the nipple then instruct the mother’s breast gland how to produce the milk fats in the milk in such a way as to assist baby in strengthening in his environment. (All diseases have frequencdies (Royal Raymond Rife … Rife machines) Homeopathy cures (C-word!) diseases by useing the same frequencies to destroy a virus … right there I’ve lost many people if they are not seen or are not familiar with the powers of vibrations, essential oils and homeopahtic remedies.)
The breat nipple is a vibrational sensor. It tells the breast gland how to vibrate the mother’s milk, so as to prepare exactly immune system that baby needs for his environment, as measured by baby’s mouth and the exchange of saliva during attachment.
What this means is that the mother’s breast is detecting the true nature of the vaccine … it’s making baby weaker … it’s designed to do that. The true weapon is the serum itself, but the mercury and formaldehyde and aluminum, and squalene (which mimicks serotonin and thus tricks baby’s growing immune system into thinking that his own serotonin is a hostile for foreign protein) are no help. If the mother’s diet is lacking in nutrients, especially minerals and oils, or her endocrine system is off and she’s not producing antibodies for herself, she won’t be able to produce the antibodies that her baby needs as well. Also, suction pump (breastfeeding without attachment) does not communicate baby’s health to the nipple sensor system. I’m suspicious that the 100,000 babies die in India each year from a rotavirus due to solely to inadequacy of mother’s breast milk or breastfeeding technique. Arghhh … hurriedly … so please forgive misspelling etc

The next time you take your pet to the veterinarian ask them why they always wait until a puppy or kitten is fully weaned from breastmilk before they vaccinate! It’s common knowledge is the animal health industry that vaccines do not work effectively while infants are nursing….the studies have been done and the logical conclusion is to wait to vaccinate until infants are fully weaned. Not the other way around! Human doctors take a hint from veterinarians maybe you’ll learn something new!

Why what the Indian mother’s breast milk better? That’s easy, because they are exposed to more types of Rotavirus more often so they have more antibodies, it’s not because they have some super better organic diet, you can’t even get organic food in India, they use tons of chemicals there.

Actually, part of the reason babies in other countries have more resistance is that their mothers have more resistance. Breastfeeding mothers pass on their immunities to their babies. So mothers in India have more immunities to give since they are not vaccinated for everything under the sun as we are in our “developed” world. I hate GMO’s, too, but have read that diet is not much of a contributing factor.

This was copied from another website…
Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhea and dehydration in young infants worldwide. Each year, rotavirus illness is responsible an estimated 453,000 deaths among infants around the world. Before the introduction of a rotavirus vaccine, rotavirus illness caused in an estimated 55,000 to 70,000 hospitalizations and 20-60 deaths in children under 5 years of age in the United States each year…
So if I need to delay breastfeeding my infant by 2 hours after the vaccine, so be it! Im glad to do it if the spread of rotavirus is less likely. Cheers.

i have been following your blog on eating real food and home natural remedies but now a new thing came up and i really would like to seek your opinions.

i am 28 weeks pregnant, doctor has recommended that i receive the tdap vaccination stating that if i don’t take it, and if the baby gets the whopping cough within his first month after birth it could cause serious problems and babies die from it.

i don’t want to be vaccinated and especially not during pregnancy but then i don’t want to live with that risk of what it could potentially do to my baby, what should i do? i feel like i won’t be able to sleep at night no matter which i choose!

Well.. Actually breastmilk only fights against the specific viruses of which the mother has immunity. Breast milk is not antiviral, it’s simply a means of transmitting antibodies. If the mother is not immune to the rotavirus and the infant is exposed to it and has not been vaccinated, reality is that child will most likely die if it was born in a third world country.

Remember Doctors used to tell women that smoking was “good for the digestion” and that bottle feeding was healthier for the child (because breast feeding was unsanitary and less nutritious). They aren’t always wrong but they sure aren’t always right either.

The vaccine will only be more effective in harming your child!! Gah. Heartbreaking that some will follow this “advice” because they truly believe the “alphabet agencies” care about health and not $$$. ~Tif

Maybe my opinion will be unpopular here, but this article made me very uncomfortable to read. The paper says ” Our findings that mothers in America and Korea had no or only modest titers of neutralizing activity in breast milk also indicate that breast-feeding may not have a substantial negative impact in these high income settings. ” That means that Americans don’t fall into this category of possibly suggesting delaying breastfeeding. Also, if you read the paper, they’re not talking about delaying breastfeeding as in “don’t breastfeed until X age”, they’re saying “if you’re getting the vaccine at 2pm, don’t breastfeed after 12pm or before 4pm”. This paper also says more studies should be done and ” the potential negative impact of breast-feeding is likely to vary by setting and could be greatest in poor developing country settings with the highest burden of rotavirus and frequent maternal exposure to natural rotavirus infection. “

Could it be turmeric and garlic? Article says Indian mother’s milk is most potent for fighting the vaccine. What is different about their milk? I read a study that said babies prefer breast milk of mothers who consumed more garlic.

Given what the Hib vaccine is, I’d skip the vaccine and nurse a child every time. Bacteria cannot be vaccinated for, so they took a piece of the bacteria and inserted it into a virus, creating a genetically engineered disease that is far worse than the illness it is supposed to protect against. Gives you a NASTY flu illness that sets up a chain of secondary infections in the sinuses, ears, throat, lungs, etc. And it is very contagious.

1. CDC is not advising to delay breastfeeding. Did you even read the paper?
2. Not sure why you’re posting a paper from October 2010 as if it’s news.
3. Four of the paper’s authors are from the CDC, not 10.
4. They’re not “advising” anyone to delay breastfeeding, merely *suggesting* near-simultaneous breastfeeding *could be* *one of* the causes of decreased vaccine efficacy in developing countries.
5. They suggest a “transient delay” in breastfeeding might help because mothers in third world countries frequently breastfeed at the clinic during their babies’ vaccine appointments. Transient, as in minutes or a couple of hours.
6. The authors maintain that breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months is best.
7. This is an issue because mothers in third world countries have pre-exposure to the rotavirus, so it’s kind of like their breast milk contains a mini vaccine to the vaccine.
8. Again, because the mothers are pre-exposed to the rotavirus, not because “breastfeeding” itself “kills” the virus and not because their diets are healthier or antibiotic- , hormone-, or pesticide-free.
9. So this doesn’t apply to those of us in the developed world.
10. Nearly half a million children in the third world die from rotavirus annually. Clearly breastfeeding does not magically protect against the virus.
11. The authors are not “assuming” the rotavirus vaccine is efficacious. It’s 85-98% effective in first and second world countries. That’s a fact.
12. The follow-up report from 2013 states that its findings and conclusions are those of the authors and not the CDC.
13. It also states that they don’t have any funding or conflicts. And if you look at their credentials it’s clear they’re not the people selling vaccines but the people trying to save kids’ lives.
14. This paper is specifically applicable to the rotavirus vaccine in a specific population. Even if the authors (who are not the CDC) were advising (which they are not) a (transient) delay (around the time of vaccination) in breastfeeding (which they heartily recommend), that advice wouldn’t be about all vaccines and it wouldn’t apply to anyone who is reading this ridiculous article.

*slow clap*. This is a brilliant response for every single reason you listed. I just had to leave a group (couldn’t stand the stupidly of these women) where the women took the blog posting as the gospel of the CDC and condimed the CDC. I doubt that any of them read the original findings.

The CDC is good for nothing in a lot of cases but, well, see everything written above for a good defense.

Secondly, these leading articles are contributing to the stupidly of our Face Book culture. The average FB user gets their information from a head line alone, without bothering to read where the original information came from or the blog ariticle itself. Your opinion about a factual matter is now being spread as fact. People are actually saying that the CDC wants people to delay breast feeding for this vaccine. They are not but people believe it. We cannot turn our world into a place where people follow the opinions of others because they’re too damn lazy to do the research and make up their own opinions. It’s your blog, but I believe in encouraging people to draw their own conclusion.

Perhaps another question that should be asked is why so many baby boomers are so fit and healthy – despite how few vaccines we have received. Instead we had ‘mumps parties’, measles parties’, etc when mothers would ensure that their child had contact with a child who had the illness in order to catch it. I don’t recall anyone having anything more than temporary discomfort but after vaccination, one boy I knew became severely disabled, his life ruined by vaccination.

Someone should do a satire of a culture that poisons their people through medical fearmpongering, serving up lousy toxic food, and injecting them with substances which cause disease and repress the immune system, like a production line, at the other end is a hospital, clinic and huge cash register. Oh wait- We already have that!

I’m sorry Food Renegade, but this blog post you have shared is full of misinformation. Please read the PSA that was shared by Lakeshore Medical Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic when the misinformation went viral a few years ago too:

“Just to clear something up. My inbox has been flooded with questions about a study about the Rotavirus vaccine and CDC recommendations about breastfeeding. It’s interesting, since the article was published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal in October 2010. Misinformation went viral, I guess. And that sucks.
First, the study was done in vitro, which means it was done experimentally and not in a live “my kids is actually breastfeeding” situation. And they only brought up the possible clinical implications of their findings in the discussion section of the paper, meaning it was not what they tested, they have no results to back it up and they are guessing. They guessed that the live oral rotavirus vaccine would be more effective if the next feeding of breast milk were somewhat delayed. It’s not a recommendation to stop breastfeeding or even feed anything else, but to slightly delay a feeding, most likely by a few hours. And that’s a guess too. They even say “It is not possible to directly translate these findings into the real-world impact as this will be affected by many other factors such as the timing and amount of breast milk in the gut at the time of vaccination.”
So, if somebody says that the CDC says stop breastfeeding, you can educate or ignore. Makes no difference to me. Much ado about nothing. Lakeshore Medical Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic”

That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Stop breastfeeding (temporarily) to make the vaccine work better? Breastfeeding protects the baby from viruses like Rotovirus because the mom passes the antibodies to the baby passively. Don’t they teach immunology in med school at all? SMH!

The study to which you refer is from 2010; that is the first problem. And some misinterpretation on your part is already noted by other commenters. More work has been done since this article was published. It is also important to note that Rotavirus kills many hundreds of thousands of babies in poor countries every year, including babies who are breastfed. Let’s tone down the emotions and figure out how to enable all children to grow to healthy adulthood.

Did you actually read the paper? “These data should encourage clinical trials to investigate whether delaying breast-feeding for a short period before and after giving the vaccine could reasonably improve the immune response and protective efficacy.”

“Rotavirus disease is responsible for an estimated 527,000 deaths per year worldwide, with >85% of these deaths occurring in low-income countries”. If breastfeeding was the answer these children wouldn’t be dying.

Don’t let the trolls get you down Food Renegade!! There are a lot of trolls polluting your comments, and it sucks, but people who have the ability o think critically see through their crap! Thank you for this valuable info!!!

Okay you are just drawing causation from correlation which should never be done because this kind of research gives no accuracy if you interpolate its conclusions onto your own biases. The point of getting vaccinated while you’re young is not so that you will contract tetanus when you are 11 months old, but to prevent it in later life when say you step on a rusty nail…I realize your website is fueled by putting blame onto modern pharmacy and conventional medical beliefs, but it cannot be helped; the industry has special interests. Anyway, I have supported that breast milk is highly beneficial as opposed to any other kind of substance of infants due to its high immunoglobulin content (as well as the other good stuff) so I am not saying your surprise is totally unfounded because of single paper. *Sigh* don’t you have time to go bash something else? While you’re on it why don’t you start your own research and to prove your own biases.

Can’t help but wonder if this is more about the formula companies losing money due to renewed interest in breastfeeding. It’s very sad that bottom lines of so many corporations are tied into our health.

In every other mammalian species the vaccination schedule is changed to avoid interfering with the healthy protection from the mother’s milk. Why is it so dog gone difficult for the medical community to give the same consideration to working WITH breast feeding instead of acting like the normal and natural is somehow BAD? With every child I raise my respect for the medical profession goes down.

Let’s get some perspective here. This study is about oral vaccines – vaccines which are taken by mouth. These vaccines are less effective in certain areas than others, and the theory presented here is that women are more likely to breast feed in the crowded clinics as they wait for the vaccine, thus causing the orally administered vaccine to literally mix with breast milk in the child’s stomach. Not surprisingly, the breast milk is able to kill the virus in the stomach before the child’s immune system is involved, thus stopping the vaccine from actually doing anything.

Secondly, and, this is really important – the types of vaccines and the viruses in this study are NOT A PROBLEM IN WEALTHY COUNTRIES. There is not money to be made here, which is why this research is still sitting and doing nothing. Your assertions that this is all some grand conspiracy to make money are quite ridiculous, not to get into the other reasons that your comments are inconsistent with/exaggerate the statements found in the paper.

I am very disappointed in the sensationalist bent you’ve taken on. I used to trust you. Now you’re twisting the facts to pursue an agenda. Or to increase you hit count. Did we even read the same paper? SMH. I wont be back. Such a shame too.

God I hate that antiscience crap. I doubt Kristen Michaelis (or the majority of those posting responses) even read the article, much less have the background to interpret it. Over 100,000 children die from rotavirus a year in India… despite being breastfeed. That’s 1 in 242 children who will die from rotavirus before they turn 5 years old… DESPITE BREASTFEEDING.
A mere suggestion for a TRIAL STUDY to examine a potential increase in the effectiveness of the vaccine due to not breastfeed for a SHORT PERIOD OF TIME (like while you are at the clinic) is not unreasonable.
The CDC does NOT dismiss the huge benefit of breastfeeding: “One of the most highly effective preventive measures a mother can take to protect the health of her infant is to breastfeed.”http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/promotion/index.htm

The CD recommends breastfeeding and cites it as a reason that newborns have a low level of rota virus infection. And the study Food Renegade is speaking of is not CD endorsed and the summary simply stated that delayed breastfeeding and its effects on vaccine efficacy should be further researched. Not a recommendation to delayed breastfeed.

This kind of sensationalist article is doing your readers a disservice. The misinformation is basically libelous against the CDC, causing your readers to develop a deep mistrust of an agency that in the future could have information that will save their lives in an emergency epidemic situation. Given your following, you should check the facts of a topic before creating a sensational headline to generate site views.

I urge FR readers to do their own research on topics presented here since we now know FR is not performing due diligence before presenting information.

This makes complete sense to me. My son started to regress into autism after we stopped breast feeding at a year….along with dose of antibiotics. Turns out my son’s autism is Lyme induced. So the breast milk was protecting his body from the Lyme and once we removed it, it allowed the disease to take over. Hind sight can cause terrible grief.

How irresponsible of the author to go on this rant. It is not what the paper released says it is not a cdc recommendation. It doesn’t state breast milk reduces rotavirus. Research, people. Don’t be lemmings, do yourself a favor and read the original document before you jump on the ranting bandwagon.

Say, did the CDC get bought by Nestle? You remember them, Nestle made a killing in 3rd world countries in the 1970s by foisting Nestle baby formula on new mothers and telling them breastfeeding was out of fashion. But then, nobody had clean water to make the formula….and babies died.

The U.S. vaccination schedule has added so many vaccines for diseases which are not dangerous or fatal in America to bolster vaccine marketing in overseas markets. Other countries don’t want products that are not in use in the U.S.

“Dr. Albert Kapikian, the NIH scientist whose research led to the [Rotashield] vaccine, was told by one health minister, “If it was not good enough for U.S. kids, it was not good enough for their infants either” (Roberts 2004, 1891). Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a distinguished American vaccinologist, pointed out, “No country was willing to place public health above possible criticism for using a vaccine rejected by the United States. This was not exactly a profile in courage” (Allen 2007, 324). Despite the efforts of the CDC and ACIP members to emphasize that their judgments for U.S. policy ought not to be applied elsewhere, their decisions effectively ended any possibility of the vaccine being used internationally.”

Say, did the CDC get bought by Nestle? You remember them, Nestle made a killing in 3rd world countries in the 1970s by foisting Nestle baby formula on new mothers and telling them breastfeeding was out of fashion. But then, nobody had clean water to make the formula….and millions of babies died.

The U.S. vaccination schedule has added so many vaccines for diseases which are not dangerous or fatal in America to bolster vaccine marketing in overseas markets. Other countries don’t want products that are not in use in the U.S.

“Dr. Albert Kapikian, the NIH scientist whose research led to the [Rotashield] vaccine, was told by one health minister, “If it was not good enough for U.S. kids, it was not good enough for their infants either” (Roberts 2004, 1891). Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a distinguished American vaccinologist, pointed out, “No country was willing to place public health above possible criticism for using a vaccine rejected by the United States. This was not exactly a profile in courage” (Allen 2007, 324). Despite the efforts of the CDC and ACIP members to emphasize that their judgments for U.S. policy ought not to be applied elsewhere, their decisions effectively ended any possibility of the vaccine being used internationally.”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3460207/

On reading more of the content of this site, my conclusion is that this lady is what we might call a “quack” if she were a doctor. Instead, she’s simply under-educated to be writing within any such forum.

As a pharmacist, I’m going to jump in here to add better information about the rotavirus vaccine. The vaccine is not labeled to prevent rotavirus infection; in fact, the label that comes with the vaccine states that it is intended to lessen the effects of rotavirus–to give you a less serious case of it. Rotavirus in the US is not a fatal infection, and pretty near every child will get it at some point, vaccinated or not, and they will all recover pretty easily, as they do from most gastrointestinal infections. The vaccine has been proven to cause cases of intussusception, which can be fatal. My pediatrician will not give it. If his patients’ parents want their children to have it, he sends them to the health department. He’s not alone in his concern about serious side effects from a vaccine that doesn’t even prevent the disease, only makes it “less bad.” Many of us in healthcare do not recommend this vaccine, even if we do support other vaccines. Whether or not this blog is inflammatory, I don’t really care.

what a Joke! The article is worded that way so idiots twist it in such a way to make it look like it’s a harmless article.
Really it’s just another shot a mothers who want real true health for their children. Anyone who thinks that real health comes from a needle or a drung is nieve at best. Real heath comes from nutritional biochemical inviduality. Anyone who claims a one size fits all scenario is trying to sell you something.
Drug companies are corrupt just like our banking system is corrupt. Sure their are good people in these institutions however their ethical and moral beliefs don’t make those companies money. Pharma only profits from disease and not health. If everyone were to become healhty the next day those companies would parish along with all the jobs in the industry it provides. The world would face economic collaspe worse then when all the industries started to close down. If you can’t understand this logic then maybe you should stop taking so many vaccines because it’s clouding your judgement.

this article is full of assumptions and forceful links between concepts which simply do not belong together. I hope it is just sheer ignorance writing this article, otherwise it is a clear case of intellectual dishonesty. Just to be on the safe side I will report the article to CDC so they can evaluate what kind of legal actions to take.
Thanks for polluting the web.

Awesome article. Big pharma will say and do anything to get people (women in this issue) whom do not do research on their own to believe just about anything! So sad when there’s so many babies with mothers who simply believe what these so called “studies” show. How about this … skip the vaccines, breast feed your babies and have a happier and healthier family?????

A paper from CDC researchers does’t necessarily mean CDC advises delayed breastfeeding, does it? If you delay breastfeeding till after vaccinations, there won’t be any breastfeeding. Maybe Indian womens breastmilk is more effective because they have more antibodies for more viruses. Now another detrimental gossip against breastfeeding to counteract ignorance of giving vaccines.

This article makes a few too many radical assumptions about the intentions of this paper which just isn’t helpful to anyone. Breast milk contains critical IgA antibodies passed on from mother to infant which helps protect them from infection in their early months/ years of life (first line of defense or innate immune system). However, in order for any human infant, child or adult to form a strong and lasting immunologic response to any virus they must develop their IgG antibodies (second line of defense or adaptive immune system). What this study points out is, yes, a mothers breast milk is doing it’s job but it’s also rendering the vaccine ineffective and preventing the infants from developing their own immune systems to fight the virus independently. It also points out that women in the United States have the least amount of IgA in their breast milk as compared to women in India, Vietnam and South Korea so your child is probably developing a stronger IgG response. And finally, the paper does not outright suggest that women delay breast feeding, it merely suggests that options to reduce this effect and improve vaccine efficacy should be explored.

450,000 children under the age of 5 die each year in developing countries due to rotavirus infections and millions more become severely ill. If breast milk were capable of providing long lasting protection to these children like a vaccine can, this wouldn’t happen. So these scientists are exploring ways to best protect these children. These are just preliminary findings and are in no way definitive answers at this time. There is no pharma conspiracy here, just people trying to save children from dying around the world. Please stop condemning scientists and public health liaisons for their efforts in trying to save these children. Please be more considerate of your potential influence.

Ugh. These pharmaceutical companies really disgust me. My baby is 13 months old has, never had a vaccine & has never even had so much as a runny nose! Still breastfeeding strong, & stopping is Not in my near future (:

Hi Kristen Michaelis: Withholding breastfeeding for fifteen minutes to half-an-hour after receiving oral polio vaccine is advised, in order that the attenuated virus may go through its normal course without being destroyed by antibodies in breast milk. (Also for Rotavirus and others).
It is important to follow World Health Organization and CDC instructions on these matters.
Regards,
Joseph (MBBS) INDIA.

Wrong, so wrong. You do NOT stop breast feeding for a moment. By your statement alone you have contradicted the true statement behind the whole blogg. It would be nice if people such as yourself understood and realised that an infant has almost no ability to develop its own anti-bodies to infection that is why it is so important for mothers to start breast feeding ASAP and not to stop for at least for 12 months. You actually supported the blog by your comments that mothers milk anti-bodies hinder and /or destroy the anti-bodies from the vaccine. Perfect, this is as it should be in nature. A child’s immune system does not even mature for close enough to 3 years old. Two points here for you to understand. A vaccine does not cure people from disease. There is NOTHING in a vaccine that is beneficial to the Human cell. The total job of an antigen/adjuvant combo is to falsely fire up the bodies OWN immune system to destroy the Pathogen/Virus. so in effect it is still our own immune system that supports our being. As far as the Rotavirus vaccine is concerned, this is the love-child of Dr. Paul Offitt who is a disgrace as a Human and as a doctor. Hippocrates would be turning over in his grave with some of the medical filth pumped into the worlds children. What ever happened to “Do No Harm”. It is true that Rotavirus kills many children in third world countries through diarrhoea due to very poor nutrition and putrid water so what does Offitt do? Creates a vaccine that stops Diarrhoea and causes a lot of other Gastro-Intestial problems. He doesn’t stop it by nutrition, clean water. Then makes millions by selling his licences and patents off and does not put any of that money back into improving true health of kids. As a final point, I don’t know if you remember the disgraceful Thalidomide debacle. I am old enough to see my Mother witness the true ramifications of this drug, for crying out load, a Morning Sickness DRUG destroying children and families alike. I am NOT ANTI-VACCINE, I am fully vaccinated but when people want to play God with our generations to come, you had want to be very aware and informed and leave your egos in your back pocket. There are 2 principles here, the KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid) and Einsteins – It should be as Simple as possible BUT NO Simpler!

The study shows that breast milk attacks the weakened virus in the digestive system. And they only suggest not breast feeding when the oral immunization is give not for weeks or months. It does not show that breast milk will help once the virus is in the blood stream. You attack them for assuming but you Mack so many assumption with no linkage of biology it is disgusting.

That is not what the study said. Nowhere on the CDC site do they say anything about delaying breastfeeding. There was only one study that made mention of something like that but never concluded women should not breastfeed. Read it yourself.

This is criminal – they are doing their best to create lifelong health problems for these babies.
Why are babies being vaccinated at birth?
Breastmilk contains valuable antibodies and support for the baby’s immune system. So strong they counter vaccines?
I had 3 children between 1978 and 1985. No vaccines were administered until at least 8 weeks of age and I limited vaccines because I was paralyzed by a vaccine.
I know vaccine injury is very real.
I hope everyone protests this, these people are truly evil.

I wonder to, how breastfeeding after vaccines affects the mothers health. With lack of sleep, my immune response can be lowered and be more susceptible from baby shedding to take more of the toxic load. Oddly i was diagnosed with Lupus after i nursed my full vaccinated 1st born. Now with baby #2 he has genetic predisposition and i want to bw cautious for my own sake. My his ped.doc is nkt hearing my concerns.